ABSTRACT
When the European Council at Copenhagen in June 1993 set out the criteria the CEE countries would have to meet to become members, it also noted that the strengthening of relations with these countries would provide opportunities to develop dialogue and consultation on matters with a trans-European dimension regarding justice and home affairs (Council of the European Union, 1993: Annex II). At the time, cooperation among the member states on justice and home affairs was confined to semi-formal intergovernmental arrangements that generally operated outside the institutional structures of the then European Community. The most notable of these were the Schengen accords on the removal between participating states of barriers to the free movement of people. Only with the establishment five months later of the EU and its pillar structure was cooperation placed on a more formal, but still essentially intergovernmental, footing in ‘pillar three’. Since then, not only has the justice and home affairs acquis been formalised, it has also expanded considerably to become a substantial and dynamic area of EU activity whose acquis states seeking to join the EU must adopt and implement. It includes asylum, border controls, visa policy, migration, organised crime, fraud, drugs, terrorism, data protection, police cooperation, customs cooperation, judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters, and Schengen. Assuming the obligations of EU membership in the justice and home affairs areas has proved to be a challenging experience for acceding states (Mitsilegas, 2002; Apap, 2004; Grabbe, 2005).
